There are a lot of ways I could go with this card. I could talk about the ancient practice of printing commons with multiple pieces of art. I could talk about how Tom Wänerstrand got to paint so many Ship cards. I could talk about the elimination of the “Ship” creature type. I could talk about how I actually like the mechanical design of this card, as there is a psychology to milling that rarely involves using it as a win condition.

Instead, I’ll talk about this card’s place in its set—the oft-maligned Homelands—and how I think the lessons from it are applicable to this year’s Great Designer Search.

As with many things in Homelands, we have to start with the flavor text to understand the card:
"Corpses for crew don't sit well with me. Zeki and his dead ship had best keep their distance." —Joskun, An-Havva Constable
If you peruse the rest of the set’s flavor text, you’ll find about a half dozen oth... (see all)

Wow, I'd never even considered the possibility of returning to Homelands. Despite how dubious the set was, it had some interesting flavour. I for one, would love Magic to return there - but with a rather more modern take on power level, please! (I also wouldn't be averse to seeing Serra and/or Feroz appear as planeswalkers - I'm sure you can get around that whole 'death' thing by using a convenient "A wizard did it!" excuse).

To me the idea of pirate ships at common makes sense since even though they are legendary in flavor, the threat that they could be there at any given time fits well at common. The mill effect goes well into that flavor as well.

Aaron: I disagree with not wanting to re-visit Ulgrotha. I'm not sure I would want to see an entire block there, but there are many players who would want to know what happened to it. If you can do Mirrodin II right, then Ulgrotha should be no problem.

Albeit this is pretty bad, the best thing about it is being a Zombie Pirate. Hell yes.

To the TV Tropers out there - all it needs now is to be an Artifact Creature - Zombie Pirate Ninja and you've got yourself a litteral Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot! XD Liquimetal Coating can help, now all we need is a card that can make it a ninja...